Hybrid complete Mueller polarimeter based on phase modulators

Optical properties of matter as diattenuation, retardance and depolarization can be evaluated using polarimetric techniques. In this paper, the analysis and implementation of a complete Mueller polarimeter is presented. The system is constituted of a polarization state generator (PSG) and a polarization state analyzer (PSA), which are controlled and synchronized through a computer program. The PSG comprises a dual liquid crystal variable retarder system while the PSA is based on a two-photoelastic modulator setup. Using air and common polarizing optics as test samples for calibration at 633 nm, the hybrid instrument met a good precision when the Mueller matrices of those optical elements were measured.

Research highlights► Two different phase modulating technologies, induced birefringence in liquid crystal and in fuse quartz, has been combined to develop a Mueller polarimeter. ► The proposed polarimetric system shows a low dispersion and a high accuracy when measuring under different conditions. ► A proper selection of four different Stokes vectors is sufficient to determine the 16 elements of the Mueller matrix, being two of them orthogonal.